What's with Florida?

For the second time in the last four Presidential elections, the State of Florida still cannot certify the results of the election as voted by its citizens.  Fortunately, the final determination of this year's election does not hang in the balance of Florida's 29 electoral votes, so the nation is spared the near-constitutional crisis that we had in 2000.  It seems to me that in the second decade of the 21st century, what with these new-fangled computers and electronic voting machines and all, that this type of circus should not be taking place.  I read an online article today that quoted Florida officials and citizens who were freely calling this situation an "embarrassment".  One official was quoted to the effect that they will look at what went wrong, what went right, and use this as a learning experience to make sure this doesn't happen again.  

Seems to me that they should have done THAT after the 2000 election.

The Big Announcement from Captain Nuts

It's hard to come up with words for Bob Nutting's (aka, Captain Nuts, Commander of the Ship of Fools) big announcement this week, which, in true Pirates fashion, was made on the same day that America was going about electing a President, no doubt hoping that it would be lost in the shuffle.  Dejan Kovacevic, Bob Simizik, and others have written some great stuff on this, but the best analysis I've seen came in Gene Collier's column this morning, and I recommend it highly:

 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/gene-collier/whole-lot-of-nothing-from-nutting-661133/

Read the whole column, by all means, but I cannot resist printing one paragraph here.  What a terrific metaphor:

Huntington took the car keys from Nutting near the end of 2007, drove a junky 68-win team down into a 57-105 ditch three years later and has now steered teams cruising toward the postseason hard into the guard rails in consecutive summers.

I wish I could write like that.

On Tino

I have not been a Tino Sunseri basher, nor do I like to bash on college football players in general.  Despite the corruption in college sports, they still are, after all, college kids, and 99% of them will never play football again after they leave college.  That said, I have to agree with the comment that Peter King made in today's Monday Morning Quarterback:

Not a fan of Pitt quarterback Tino Sunseri saying after his kicker, Kevin Harper, missed a 33-yard field goal in overtime, "We missed a field goal. That's why we lost the game." What a teammate Sunseri is. Pitt blew a 20-6 lead in the fourth quarter, and Harper made four of five field goals in the 29-26 loss. But he missed the one field goal that would have won it in the second overtime. Everyone who watched the game, and everyone in the Pitt locker room, understands a makeable field goal would have won the game. But to put the spotlight on one guy -- that's not what the quarterback on a team should do.

While Sunseri has never been great, he has, at times, been a serviceable college quarterback in his years at Pitt, and the frequent coaching changes sure haven't helped him, but this is the kind of stuff for which he will be remembered.  

The Johnstown Flood Museum

Regular readers may recall me posting a few months back about reading David McCullough's 1968 book, "The Johnstown Flood" ( http://grandstander.blogspot.com/search?q=johnstown+flood).

Well, reading that book prompted me to want to visit the Johnstown Flood Museum in Johnstown.  We planned the trip for last Monday, October 29.  Kind of ironic that we made this visit on the same day that Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the East Coast, bringing with it the type of devastation that was delivered to Johnstown back in 1889.  The Museum was a most interesting one.  The highlight was a documentary film that was made in 1990, and which won an Academy Award, by the way, and a diorama of the flood path from the dam at the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, through the valley, and onto Johnstown itself.

In the intervening week since our visit and the touchdown of Sandy, a couple of thoughts occurred to me.  Residents along the east coast last week knew that Sandy was on its way, knew to prepare for it and knew, in extreme cases, to evacuate the area.  This level of preparedness, which we take for granted in the 21st century, no doubt saved hundreds of lives.  The people of Johnstown had no such warnings in 1889.  Also, Sandy was natural disaster, and while it was torrential rains in 1889 that led to the breaching of the South Fork Dam, the disaster could have, maybe, been prevented but for the arrogance of those members of the South Fork Club.

It took about two hours to tour the Museum, and I would recommend it.  The weather was lousy when we were there, so we were unable to get to the site of the dam.  Maybe another time.

We were planning to stay overnight in Johnstown and, on our way home, visit the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, PA.  We did stay overnight, but we found out by checking on line that the Stewart Museum would be closed the next day due to the weather conditions.  Guess that a day trip to Indiana will be in the cards for us at some point in the future.

I will close with one more picture.  I found this bit of Label Copy at the Museum to be interesting considering what prompted us to make this trip in the first place:

Happy Birthday, Elke Sommer

Today is the 72nd birthday of German actress Elke Sommer.

Back in around 1980, give or take a year or two, and via circumstances I won't bother to recount, I had the opportunity to come face to face with Ms. Sommer at Heinz Hall.  All I can say is that she was the most stunningly beautiful woman I had ever seen up to that point, and no one has come close since.

Of course, I am not including my wife in this accounting.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Ms. Sommer.

"Judgement at Nuremberg"

Again, taking my own advice, I went to the DVR yesterday and watched this absolutely terrific 1961 movie, Stanley Kramer's "Judgement at Nuremberg".  What a great movie.  Abby Mann won the Oscar in 1961 for his screenplay on this movie and what a piece of writing.  He gave to almost each of his principal actors some fabulous set pieces of dialog to deliver, and every one of them delivered.

The actors you see in the picture above are Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, and Montgomery Clift.  At one point or another in the movie, each of these actors had the opportunity to deliver scenes and dialog that fairly screamed "Academy Award", and they all delivered.  Tracy and Schell had several such scenes, and each were nominated for Best Actor that year, with Schell winning the Oscar.  Both Clift and Garland received supporting actor nominations, and both gave performances that were almost painful to watch - and I mean that in a complimentary way, of course.  And then there was Lancaster as one of the accused war criminals.  He didn't have a lot of dialog, only one lengthy piece near the end when he testified, but, man, what he could say with his eyes and his facial expressions.  The acting alone makes this movie a real treat to watch.  Kramer was also nominated for Best Director.

The story may be a familiar one - 1948 Nazi war crimes trials, the Holocaust, who knew what, who is to blame, should the entire country be held accountable for the crimes of a few monsters, and the political pressures and realities that were arising as the political realities of a post-WW II world was emerging are all spotlighted in this long, but riveting movie.  

It is a movie that should be mandatory viewing in all high school history classes, I believe.  In fact, it might not be a bad thing if it were mandatory viewing for everyone once, say, every five years or so.

Great, great movie.

Final Baseball Thoughts for 2012

Some final 2012 baseball thoughts while applying some neetsfoot oil to the glove before putting it away for the winter.....

• Can you think of a World Series that will be less memorable as time goes on than the Giants just completed sweep of the Tigers?  Unless you are a Giants fan, I'll bet there will be a lot of people who won't even be able to name who played in it once the opening of Spring Training rolls around.
• This is to take nothing - NOTHING - away from the Giants for their victory.  It was thoroughly convincing and well earned.  Considering that during the course of the post-season, they faced SIX elimination games and won every one of them, it was pretty remarkable.
• The irony is that three Tigers' pitchers, Doug Fister, Anibal Sanchez, and Max Sherzer all pitched games that would have probably earned them victories, say, eight out of ten times, and that it was their rock, Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, who let them down and got rocked in Game One.  That, and the anemic Tiger bats, pretty much set the tone for what was to follow.
• My lasting memories of this post-season will be (1) the game Barry Zito pitched in Game 5 of the NLCS, (2) watching the Washington Nationals snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by blowing a 6-0 lead and giving up four runs in the ninth in Game Five with the Cardinals to lose the NLDS, (3) the ALCS game where the Yankees tied the Tigers in the bottom of the ninth, lost Derek Jeter to a broken ankle, then saw the Tigers win in the twelfth, and (4) that ridiculous interpretation of the infield fly rule in the NL Wild Card game..
• Too bad that the excitement of the Division and League Championship seasons couldn't have carried forward into the World Series.  Bud Selig and the other MLB Bigdomes had to be disappointed in that.
• I think the Orioles beat the Phillies in four games in the 1983 Series.  That was pretty unmemorable.
• I have been on this soapbox before, but allow me once again to say that I think it would be wonderful if Major League Baseball would adopt "uniform police" much like the NFL does.  I hate the pants-down-to-the-shoetops look, but what might be even be worse is seeing players on teams with old fashioned knickers and high socks while other players go with the long pants.  Even then, players screw it up.  Hunter Pence and Barry Zito wear the high solid black socks, while teammate Sergio wears the high black socks with three horizontal stripes on them.  Shouldn't uniforms be uniform?  And why doesn't someone tell Hunter Pence to button the top three buttons on his shirt?  And why are helmets allowed to be defaced with pine tar?  And are there two sloppier looking ballplayers in any sport than Pablo Sandoval and Prince Fielder?
• Wow, I think I need to take an aspirin now.
• And speaking of irony, how about that on the day the Pirates decline the option on Rod Barajas, while still considering resigning him as a free agent for 2013, it is also announced that Matt Weiters wins a Gold Glove?
• As I put the neetsfoot oil away, I ask - what exactly is a "neet"?